Music reviews and interviews on all things pop and rock as well as everything in between

Fight The Sun

Introducing Melbourne’s newest rock gods Fight The Sun. A wall of sound is the best way to describe the trio’s debut EP. Coming at you full speed with unwavering distortion, powerhouse vocals, gnarly riffs and flat out dirty aggressive rock ‘n’ roll. Recorded at Melbourne’s Iconic Homesurgery Recordings under the infallible guidance of Jon Grace, Samuel K and Shihad’s own Tom Larkin. The process saw the trio systematically carve down twenty-five tracks to reach the final four full throttle bangers. The band answer a few question for Hi Fi Way: The Pop Chronicles.

It sounds like 2018 will be massive for Fight The Sun with the release of the EP?
We certainly hope so. Got a lot of things in the works at the moment including more shows, videos and EP number 2.

Can you believe how much hard work and time goes in to the EP?
Not really but it was a great challenge. We’ve all been in bands before and had a reasonable amount of studio experience but despite the work involved this was the most enjoyable and satisfying experience by far. We’d do it every day of our lives if we could.

What was it like working with Tom Larkin?
It was a great learning experience. We learnt a lot about the craft of songwriting and it definitely gave us another perspective on what we do. It also gave us a lot more confidence in ourselves and our ability and potential. And he, and Jon and Sam as well who work with him at Homesurgery are just really great dudes and real easy to get along with.

How did you narrow it down from twenty-five to four tracks?
It was pretty much a group consensus. The songs were all demoed in various forms from band rehearsal recordings to really bare bones acoustic versions recorded in someone’s living room. Then everyone listened to everything, rated it all and focused on the songs that rated the best with everyone overall. There were some things that we individually thought were great and rated highly but as a group they didn’t rate at all, which was kind of funny.

Will those other tracks see the light of day?
They may. Some of them were and still are part of our live set, For others it’s probably better if they don’t haha. In the interim since then and now though we’ve written a whole stack of new songs which is probably what we’ll focus on for our next EP.

Does being compared with the likes of Biffy Clyro & The Deftone – does that create more pressure or greater expectation?
We wish were that good especially Biffy. We’re pretty much at the beginning of this bands existence so to be honest there’s not really any pressure or expectations from being compared to anyone.

Are there any significant influences that have shaped your music?
There’s a lot. Everything we listen to probably gets filtered down into it somewhere along the way. We’ve all got pretty wide ranging influences. Early stuff like AC/DC, The Who, The Beatles etc right through to QOTSA, Foo Fighters, Biffy Clyro. AC/DC definitely was an early shared influence though that shaped most of us. Without them we may never have picked up instruments in the first place. Blame them!

How did the band get together?
We’d all known each other for a while and some of us had played in bands together previously. There were a few early versions of the band, a few people came and went as we were trying to figure out what we were doing until we bumped into Rone somewhere and here we are.

Is there a story behind the band name?
It was actually the name of like the 1st or 2nd song we wrote for Fight the Sun. Believe us when we tell you it’s a way better name for the band than a song!

Are there plans for an album?
Eventually that’s the plan but there’s a lot to do before we get there. Another EP for starters. There’s definitely more songs to be written, more gigs to play and more work to be done establishing ourselves before then.

Sonically how do you think it will sound?
It probably won’t stray too far from where we’re at, at the moment. It’ll hopefully be a further refinement of what we’re doing now. There’s so many songs and ideas coming through though.

Any plans to tour Australia more extensively?
Yeah for sure. We’ve got plans already to do another more extensive run of shows April/May onwards.

What’s the plan from here?
More writing, videos, more writing, more touring, next EP. Did we mention more writing…..